By Kurt 'Froglips' Giesselman

  Now it is time to 'test' build a flight from each airbase to each target area to estimate the flight miles. Build the flights using 90 degrees ingress. This will provide mileage with some cushion to move the endpoints, have multiple targets, or set flight paths to avoid enemy emplacements or CAPs.

Call up the briefing and total the distances for all the waypoints.

Just reuse the flight for each target (you will only have to create one flight for each airbase then drag the target steerpoint around to calculate all the distances).

Why calculate all this? Ever downloaded a mission where an aircraft's flight path was completely red? You looked at all the steerpoints and nothing appeared wrong (no impossible to achieve speeds, or altitudes). The poor fellow was out of gas!

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Falcon flags a flight plan that exceeds the range of an aircraft by making it red. The combat radius for each type of aircraft is in the Technical Reference Guide under Performance. You can fly farther than the stated combat radius but you have no extra fuel for dog fighting or other high fuel consumption maneuvers.

Helicopters have very short ranges compared to most fixed wing military aircraft. They also can not refuel in-flight. The Blackhawk has the longest range of any helicopter in our inventory with 160nm combat radius.

The Seoul and Suweon airbases just are not going to work. We will ferry a four ship to Kimpo, refuel them, and task them from there (We must set the Blackhawk squadron at Seoul and use our imagination for the rest. The mission editor has no provisions for ground refueling.) That distance is 169.6 or less with a straight shot back. The A-10s are on the edge with a 250nm combat radius but OK tasked out of Seoul.

Aircraft combat radius:

UH-60L 160

• E-3 1000
• EA-6B 450
• A-10 250
• F-15C 1060
• F-16C 500
• MiG-21 200
• SU-27 810

Now we have all the information to begin planning the mission. We are ready for Part 2.

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